


Wish

by julie4697



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, Super Dangan Ronpa 2, The Little Mermaid (1989)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 16:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8586268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie4697/pseuds/julie4697
Summary: I'm moving more of my tumblr ficlets here. I wrote this based on “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid. It’s more based on the original fairy tale by Andersen than the Disney movie, though. Enjoy!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I might re-write this at some point with Komaeda as the mermaid instead, but for now take this self-sacrificing mermaid Nanami and despairing prince Komaeda.

Komaeda smiled.

“Forgive my rudeness, but in the few weeks that you’ve stayed with me, I’ve realized I still don’t know your name.“

It was far too cool to be a summer’s evening, and Nanami shivered a little in the breeze, drawing her shawl tightly around her. The young prince sitting across her in the tiny boat noticed, and began taking off his own bottle-green coat. She made a gesture of protest.

"Are you sure you’ll be all right? Temperatures get a little low around here.” He chuckled. “Not to mention the constant rain. Clear nights like these are rare, you know. It’s wonderful luck that the skies cleared up just for our date.”

He fell almost immediately into a brooding silence, and she wondered if he’d said something he shouldn’t have. But he soon perked up again, a large grin across his face. “But back to your name. Let’s see if I can try to guess it.”

They floated along in the lagoon. The wind whispered through the bulrushes and across the tops of the trees, and in the dusky light Nanami could see the first stars breaking in the firmament. She stared–-deep under the sea, the only stars one saw were starfish. She had glimpsed a few sky-stars during her occasional trips to the shore, of course, but these seemed different somehow; they were new stars, young stars, pale and blinking and fragile stars. She remembered the brittleness of his body as she had held it in her arms, his exposed torso covered in a constellation of scars and his white hair lying limp and unruly on his forehead like so much seaweed. And before that, she’d watched him jump into the sea, drawing a long arc like a shooting star across the gray stormy sky, and watched him disappear into the green waves below, without ever comprehending why. Did humans wish on stars like mermaids did on seafoam? Was it possible for humans to wish so dearly for something that they were willing to become a star for it?

Her thoughts were broken by a low contemplative hum on his part. “Is it…Oogami?” He tipped his head gently to one side, an enquiring look on his face. She quickly shook her head.

“Well then, is it…Enoshima?” The name sent a cold stab through her heart, and she shook her head again, much more forcefully this time. He laughed. “All right then, certainly not Enoshima. Just give me a few more tries, I usually have some- I mean, I’m usually quite good at these things.”

He tapped his fingers on the side of the boat, mouthing a few names. “Asahina…Tsumiki…Saionji…none of these seem correct…”

She leaned forward and tapped his knee to get his attention. Startled, he looked up, and she held up seven fingers for him to see. He frowned.

“Seven…? Nana…is it…Nanami?” She smiled faintly and nodded.

His face lit up. “Ah! Nanami-san it is, then. I wonder why it didn’t occur to me before. It suits you quite well, you know. Is it written like the characters for ‘seven seas’?”

She nodded again. Komaeda leaned back, satisfied. “I see. What a lovely name. Like the name for a mermaid, or a sea nymph. You see, Nanami-san, I’m quite convinced they exist. Would you like to hear a funny story?”

And although she knew exactly what it would be, she nodded yes.

“Just the other day, while I was on a walk along the cliff-side behind the castle, I had an accident,” he began. “It was a windy day, and I must have lost my balance, or perhaps I wasn’t looking where I was going. I can be terribly stupid sometimes like that.

In any case, I fell off the side of the cliff, right into the sea! I thought for sure I was going to die. Or perhaps I wasn’t, but who could have guessed that I would be rescued by none other than a young woman? Because when I woke up, I saw her face looming above mine, and I knew for sure that it had to be an angel, or a mermaid, or some kind of sea-fairy. It had to be, because she had the most wonderful silky voice, and disappeared into the ocean shortly afterwards. Do you know what she said to me, Nanami-san? She said, 'Please live.’ Imagine that!”

He gave a low chuckle, though his voice had lost all humor. “Ah, pardon me for extolling the praises of another woman in your presence. I realize it’s very rude of me. But we both know she couldn’t possibly have been of our world, now, don’t we, Nanami-san? I firmly believe there are ethereal creatures far better and wiser than us humans are, and one day they’ll come to rescue us from ourselves just like that mermaid did for me. Maybe they might even rule over us someday. I find that a comforting thought.”

They floated along in silence, entering a small dark grove through an opening of trees. Shadows fell on his face, obscuring his expression, and Nanami supposed the same must have happened to her. Not that she herself had shown any expression to speak of, but she found it an annoyance that he would be unable to see her gestures in the darkness. 

“Nanami-san?” His voice came sharp and clear, with a mild touch of concern. “Is this all right? Are you afraid of the dark?”

In response, she reached forward until she found his hand and gripped it in her own.

“Ah, so you are a little afraid. Let me row us out of here for you-” He seemed to fumble for the oars on the side of the boat, but she gripped his hand tighter, and he stopped.

“Would you like to stay here, then?” She squeezed his fingers.

“I see. I’m relieved that you’re not afraid of the dark, Nanami-san. After all, this is my favorite spot. Let’s stay here for a while, then,” he said. “The fireflies should come out soon.”

And come out they did. Gold glowing dots, starkly contrasted against the black trees, blinked and shimmered on their way up into the sky. Nanami drank in every shred of light, breathing deeply in the cold summer air, and felt Komaeda’s fingers intertwining with hers.

So this is what humans could see every night, instead of the unloving blackness of the marine abyss. In the sea, darkness was absolute after nightfall; here, however, even the darkest grotto could be punctuated by such lovely living stars, and instead of the crushing pressure of water on her gills, she could taste the faint grassy scent of the marsh that sent thrills through every point in her body. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that Komaeda was watching her looking at the fireflies, and she didn’t need to see his face to know that he was smiling. Her heart gave a funny little ache as she remembered him again, the most unhappy star she had ever seen, soaring desperately into the ocean in search of salvation. In another sunset’s time she, too, would disappear into seafoam, but unlike him, Nanami was perfectly willing to accept that no higher creature would come to meet her at her demise. She only had wanted to know if she had made a mistake in bringing him back to the shore. And now that she saw she hadn’t, she only had one last thing to say to him.

Before he had any chance of drawing his hand away, she upturned his palm and traced letters into it.

_Please live._

When he had finally comprehended her words, he laughed, a hollow sound in the darkness. “Just like my mystery lady! Really, I’m starting to wonder if you aren’t her after all.”

She pulled her hand back into her lap. There was a silence, broken only by the chirping of crickets and nighttime insects around them, and she continued to watch the fireflies floating in the sky. The air was growing warmer in the small grove where the two of them sat.

Komaeda spoke.

“You know, Nanami-san,” he said quietly, “I read once in a book that mermaids don’t have souls. They can only receive them if they are loved by a human, upon their first kiss. A terrible disappointment, don’t you think? I should like to believe that mermaids and fae have higher souls than we do. Tainting them with human love seems selfish and disgusting, somehow. I think that was simply a legend humans made up in order to fall in love with mermaids without guilt. Don’t you think so?”

She was silent.

He continued. “It’s funny, really. It feels like sacrilege to even entertain the notion. But to be quite honest, I’m getting an urge to kiss you right now, Nanami-san. Would it be all right if I did that? Would you allow me to love you in this disgusting, base way? Would you let me offend you like that?”

Her vocal cords may have been frozen, but her fingers were warm as she pulled him towards her, sending the tiny boat rocking precariously. She heard the rustle of his coat, now only a few inches in front of her, and her hand slid down onto his neck where his pulse quickened steadily.

“Ah,” he sighed, and she felt his breath tremble on her lips.

Despite herself she found herself curling her fingers into his hair–-the soft, fine ones at the base of his neck–-and her own breath hitched as she felt him run a gentle thumb across her cheek. The air around them whispered with promise. _Kiss her, kiss her._ His hand was shaking. He was so close, what on earth was he waiting for?

She must have leaned forward a little too quickly, because at that precise moment, the boat capsized.

The two of them were sent tumbling into the lake, and Nanami gasped before remembering that she could no longer breathe underwater. Sputtering and coughing, she looked for Komaeda blindly before a thin pair of arms pulled her back onto the boat. Almost immediately, she felt his wet coat being draped around her shoulders. She shrugged it off and tried to offer it back to him. He pushed it again towards her.

“What terrible luck!” he cried, a strange exhilaration in his voice. “And to think that I was relieved we didn’t have any rain tonight! You must be freezing, Nanami-san, being soaked to the bone! Let’s get back home quickly so we can warm you up.”

She let him take the oars and row them back to the castle, where his servants ran out in alarm upon seeing their drenched state. “We had a little accident out on the lake, nothing serious,” Komaeda laughed. “Please get the lady inside and have a change of clothes ready immediately.”

Don’t think I didn’t feel your hand pushing the boat down, Komaeda-kun, she thought. Accident, indeed. She tried her best not to feel so petulant about it, but she could still feel his warm pulse beneath her fingers and it was hard to keep a straight face after what he had done to her. She’d never even hoped to live a life as a human, let alone alongside him, but after having the option dangled so close to her face, she couldn’t help but feel a little cheated.

He said he’d loved her, after all.

What did love even mean for him?

But she decided not to pursue that line of thought any further. For now, all she would think about were the stars blinking outside her bedroom window, and later that night when the white seafoam washed against the sand, she would pick up a handful and blow it towards them. And she would wish that, no matter who he loved or which legends he believed in, he would continue to breathe and live in this wonderful wide world above the sea, and to never try to rejoin the stars again.


End file.
